Beginning in middle age and continuing through later adulthood, individuals are often motivated by events in their own lives or the lives of significant others to obtain health-related information.^^ Health-related concerns draw many adults into a new domain of science learning. At the same time, with retirement, older adults have more time to devote to personal interests. Their science learnmg addresses long-standing scientific interests as well as new areas of interest.^^
Adults differ fr...

Various notes taken from the conference session on science education with Stacy Baker's biology students:

Jack – into games, not many learning games out there. – homeVSschool technology use: what’s allowed in the different contexts, home is about socialization, school is about productivity, need to intersect the two. (Media needs to relate to him, technology, chemistry “New Social Network of Atoms Creates New Compounds”)

Michael – into vlogs, recording things on a research boat – students want hands-on activities, looking for internships, homeVschool: school tumbler account and home personal tumbler account to distinguish uses of productivity and socialization. PLoS was a great resource.

Carl – into Classroom blogs, likes tumbler sciokid.tumblr.com. Baker sends opportunities all the time and preparing for scio11. Was inspired by Baker showing him how people around the world were seeing her website

Paul – into wikis, allow students to express themselves, science online wiki, Proj: you have to put yourself out there, read newspapers and follow links to find things, NYT and Wired, (Interest: be interesting enough and esoteric as well, be terse without complicated jargon)

Naseem– into science literacy, how media , nature blog (Adult readers) rely on word of mouth for students to find the blog

Samantha – encourage more student blogs, students communicate ata level appropriate to other students, Green Science, global warming, (What about Adult readers) adults can still read her blog, but she is targeting her

Alexandra – believer in personalizing education, more into humanities, used podcasts and youtube, youtube.com/vlogbrothers, - teenagers want to feel like they are doing something, they want to participate and contribute. homeVSschool: the more competitive college search gets, the more she uses her laptop at home for educational purposes, looking for opportunities to improve chances of getting into colleges, MSNBC, Google News for facts, This Week in Tech Podcast, Relatability (how something relates to me) is important for having something catch her eye, Carl Zimmer cut to the chase about Duck Mating by calling it Duck Sex

Justin – blogging, using blogs in a variety of ways in science learning, frogs with the citric fungal disease and blogged it

Rachel Ward – chemistry teacher, using online tools to make the classroom a more exciting place

I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out of Here: imascientist.org.uk, website where students chat with scientsts and vote for their favorites, least votes get evicted, connected students in remote areas to scientists around the world, allows quieter students to participate more in class discussions, what about when scientists give wrong answers (they should say “I don’t know”), why isn’t there a USA version of this? (Kiome Jarrets: People need to complain. State by state engagement)

Shanahan – research online science communication, science education professor, works to get students interested in science, reduce their fear, arsenic life story, had students choose a blog and follow it for a month and write a book report on what the blog was about and a lesson sequence for future classes on the blog, students found science blogs were interesting, easy to understand, students used blog the same way they used books and magazine-no engagement no using comments, need bloggers who will give students an interactive experience,

Audience Comment: everone is trying to find balance between professional and personal technology use, separating and integrating.